The Guilty Read online

  Nancy turned her face away from him and picked up a glass of water, bringing it to her lips with a trembling hand. She sipped from it slowly, then turned back toward him, clearly still angry, but in better control of her emotions.

  “I’d like to go home now, please.”

  He began to speak, to present further arguments in his defense, but the little common sense he had left told him it was pointless. It would have just made things worse, if that was at all possible. In the space of less than a minute their perfect evening had come to a sudden, crashing end.

  Moving quickly to avoid looking at the amused stares of the other guests at their table, they got up and slipped out of the hall.

  Chapter 5

  Kouri had managed to reach the two alibi witnesses and they were coming to the office at noon that Sunday. Bratt spent the morning reading through the preliminary inquiry transcripts, doing his best to forget the previous night’s debacle. When Kouri arrived a bit before 9 a.m. he was surprised to find Bratt already hard at work, unaware the lawyer had gotten to bed early following the abrupt end of his date with Nancy.

  Bratt jotted down notes as he read the testimony of the two main Crown witnesses, trying to get a feel for how Paris and Phillips reacted under cross-examination. To Bratt’s way of thinking, Paris, the accomplice turned stool pigeon, couldn’t help but come across as untrustworthy and the lawyer didn’t worry too much about how he was going to handle him in court.

  Phillips was another story, though. By some sort of miracle he had survived two gunshots to the back of his neck, just at the base of his skull. He had no criminal record. He didn’t know nor have anything against Marlon Small, whose picture he had picked out of several dozen photos in a high school yearbook. It wasn’t even the same high school that Phillips attended. For all these reasons it would be very hard to get a jury to believe that he was lying about who shot him. He had no reason to lie, to intentionally blame the wrong man.

  But that’s what I’m going to have to show, Bratt thought. The jury’s going to have to think that either he’s a liar or his powers of observation are so weak as to be worthless. That kid’s the biggest obstacle to our winning this case. Too bad about him getting shot, but I’m just going to have to knock him down a peg or two.

  Phillips’s testimony at the preliminary inquiry had been fairly solid, but Bratt had been able to rattle better witnesses than him before. He knew this was precisely what Jeannie was angry about, why she had suddenly turned against all criminal lawyers. But there could be no self-doubt now. Time was short and he had a client who was relying on his skill and experience to be saved from a lifetime in jail. Bratt’s personal feelings about Small and the skepticism he felt about his innocence were irrelevant.

  At the same time, Bratt knew it would be hard to predict which way a jury’s sympathy would go. Attacking a shooting victim on the stand could easily backfire if he wasn’t careful. For that reason as much as any other they would still need some solid alibi witnesses to raise the precious doubt they needed to win. And that’s what had him sitting in his office on this Sunday morning.

  Just then Kouri knocked at his office door. “Mr. Shoot to Kill is here to see you,” he announced, clearly reveling in the chance to call Bernard Clayton by his street name.

  Bratt pushed the transcripts aside and asked, “What about the Parker kid?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s here too,” Kouri answered, with a smile. His head disappeared from view for a few seconds, then he returned, leading two heavily muscled young men into Bratt’s office.

  The pair shuffled in nonchalantly. Their style of dress was identical to Small’s. They wore the same baggy, low-slung pants, sleeveless sports jerseys under puffy winter jackets and matching red bandanas on their heads.

  Uninvited, they dropped themselves, side by side, onto Bratt’s sofa, and looked up at him with totally inexpressive faces. Bratt doubted that either one was going to be any more personable than their friend Small. He didn’t get up from his own chair to greet them, as this simple civility seemed superfluous. He just turned to a fresh page on his legal pad and picked up his pen.

  “Which one of you guys likes to be called Shoot to Kill?”

  The two glanced at each other, then the taller one spoke. “Who wants to know?”

  “Ah, you would be Bernard Clayton then,” Bratt surmised. He felt he needed to show he was in charge of this interview right off the top. “I’ll call you Bernard because I’m old enough to be your father, and I’ll only call you Mr. Clayton in court. You’ll call me Mr. Bratt all the time.”

  The two young men continued to wear their blank expressions, as if Bratt were a boring TV show they had watched so often they knew the words by heart. He turned his gaze to Parker.

  “I guess that makes you Ashley, right? If you’d be so kind to wait outside the office, we’ll talk with Bernard here first and then get your statement later.”

  Ashley, unsurprisingly to Bratt, didn’t move from his place. He didn’t turn toward Bernard either, but just stared blankly in Bratt’s direction. Kouri shifted uncomfortably in his chair and Bratt cleared his throat before trying again.

  “Ashley, if I’m going to take your witness statements I have to speak to each one of you alone, so that you can both tell me just what you remember, without influencing each other. I’m not trying to pull any fast ones on you guys. In court you won’t be allowed to listen to each other’s testimony, so you better get used to telling your stories independently.”

  Parker didn’t move at first, but Clayton turned his head toward him and whispered, “It’s OK, man, go.”

  Parker slowly stood and walked out of the office. Bratt turned to Kouri and signaled with his head that he should follow the witness, resisting the temptation to warn him about making sure Parker didn’t steal anything.

  Once they were out of the office, he turned his attention to the remaining witness. Clayton’s face wore several scars that attested to the violence of the life he lead. Under the bandana, his hair was short, except on one side where he wore it dreadlocked.

  “Ok, Bernard. You know I want to talk to you about the night the Phillips boys and a drug dealer named Indian were shot, late last summer down in Little Burgundy. It was in an apartment on Carrier Street. According to the reports of gunfire by the neighbors, the shooting took place at approximately 11:25 p.m. Can you tell me where you were that night?”

  Clayton’s tone of voice was flat and disinterested. He sounded like he was reciting a boring script.

  “I was with Brando and Ash at the park in LaSalle, shooting hoops. Brando drove us home around midnight, so he was nowhere near Little Burgundy when the guys got shot.”

  “Fine. Now what makes you say you left the park around midnight?”

  Clayton’s expressionless face displayed the slightest hint of confusion.

  “What you mean?”

  “Well, you said that Brando, Marlon that is, drove you home around midnight. How do you know what the time was?”

  Clayton shrugged. “’Cause that was the time.”

  Bratt took a small breath and decided to start again. He knew that for some witnesses certain facts, such as time and place, were so self-evident that questioning them made the witnesses feel defensive, as if they thought they were being tricked. Clayton’s new expression of wariness let him know that such was the case now.

  “I’m sure that you’re right about the time. It’s just that in court you may be asked how you knew what the time was. So, I want you to be ready to answer that question. Now, can you tell me why you think you left the park around midnight.”

  “’Cause it takes me twenty minutes to get home and I got home around twenty after midnight.”

  “Excellent. Now, why do you say you got home at twenty past midnight?”

  “I know what time I got home.”

  “I’m sure you do. I just want to know why you say that it was twenty past midnight.”

  “’Cause that was the fuckin’
time, man!”

  Bratt felt a growing sense of exasperation. If the most basic questions were so hard to answer in his office, how would Clayton handle the pressure cooker of a jury trial? He had no choice but to be very suggestive in his questions, almost to the point of explaining to Clayton what kinds of answers he should give.

  “Look, Bernard, I’m really not trying to trick you or anything. When somebody knows that something happened at such and such a time, usually it’s because they either saw the time on their watch or on a clock, or maybe somebody told them the time. Sometimes, it’s just because they were watching their favorite TV show, so they might know the time that way. OK? So, let’s try again: how do you know at what time you and Marlon left the park.”

  Clayton sat up and pointed his finger angrily at Bratt. “Now you’re trying to trick me. I left the park with Marlon and Ashley, not just Marlon alone!”

  With that he sat back in the sofa, an expression of satisfaction on his face. Bratt had no idea what his own expression was just then. He only knew that it would be anything but satisfaction. He thought that if he were in a comic strip he’d be pulling tufts of his hair out of his head by now.

  He sat quietly for several seconds, his mind as blank as Clayton’s earlier expression, before reviving himself with an idea for a fresh approach.

  “I notice that you’re not wearing a watch today, Bernard. Do you remember if you wore a watch that night in the park?”

  “I don’t got no watch,” Clayton answered sullenly.

  “Do you remember if you saw the time on the clock in Marlon’s car?”

  “Clock in his car don’t work.”

  “All right then. Did you see the time on a clock at your home after he dropped you off?”

  “No. I didn’t put the lights on ’cause I didn’t wanna wake up my mom.”

  “That’s very commendable. So did somebody, anybody, mention the time to you when the three of you left the park?”

  Clayton seemed to think through this one for a couple of seconds before answering. “No. The park was empty when we left. Everybody had gone home a long time before.”

  “I see,” Bratt said, thinking that he had gotten his point across to Clayton, who would now have no reason to misunderstand his meaning. “So how do you know what time it was that you left the park?”

  “Shit, man,” Clayton yelled, jumping up in frustration. “I thought we already settled that. How come you don’t believe me? I tell you over and over I know the time we left. It was around midnight. It wasn’t exactly midnight, so I didn’t have to check the second hand on nobody’s watch or nothing. It was just around midnight.”

  “So it could have been before midnight?”

  “Well, yeah. It could have been before midnight. Maybe it was. That would still be around midnight, right?”

  “Could it have been 11:30?”

  “I suppose so. I wasn’t wearing a watch, like I said. An’ it’s been a long time.”

  “Could it have been close to eleven that you three left?”

  “I dunno. Maybe it was. We just left when we got tired of playing, you know? We didn’t have a schedule to keep or nothing.”

  “If you left at 11 P.M. and drove to Little Burgundy, what time would you have gotten there?”

  “We didn’t go to Burgundy. Ash an’ me live up in Cote des Neiges.”

  “If. Just if.”

  “OK, ‘if.’ I dunno. It’s not far. Maybe ten past. Maybe 11:15.”

  “So, that would still have made it possible for Marlon to commit the murders at 11:25 p.m. And it might indicate that you and Ashley were his accomplices.”

  Bratt sat back and watched as the implication of what he said sank into Clayton’s none too thin skull. Clayton looked lost at first, then began getting angry again.

  “What the fuck’re you trying to pull? You’re supposed to prove that Brando didn’t do nothing, not that I helped him kill those guys!”

  Bratt was equally angry now. He sat forward in his chair as he spoke, his hands gripping its armrests. “Yes, that is what I’m supposed to prove. And the least bit of help from you or any other so-called alibi witness would be appreciated. So far, though, you haven’t given your friend much of an alibi, have you? Your ‘around midnight’ seems to give him all the time in the world to go to Burgundy and shoot those guys.”

  He stared at Clayton who had gotten up and begun pacing around the office in obvious agitation. Finally, Clayton turned to him and said his first intelligent words since he and Parker had arrived.

  “OK. Maybe I gotta talk to Brando a bit about that, see if there’s maybe something I forgot.”

  “Yeah,” Bratt said, trying to keep the sarcasm down to a slow drip. “Maybe there are a couple of small details that slipped your mind.”

  Clayton sat back down slowly, nodding his head. “Yeah, some small details.”

  “Fine. There is another important question that I have to ask you, and it’s along the same lines as the last one. How do you know that the night Marlon drove you and Ashley home was the night of the murder?”

  “What you mean?” Clayton asked timidly, obviously concerned about where this question might lead.

  “Well, are you sure you guys were playing basketball at the park the night of the murders?”

  “Yeah, of course. We spent every night at that park. It was right next to where Brando’s baby-mother lived, and he was always by there. We shot hoops every night during the summer.”

  “Great. So, if you guys spent all your evenings last summer hanging around that park, playing basketball, how do you know that the night Marlon drove you home “around midnight” wasn’t the night before the murders, or the night after? In other words, how can you be sure you’re talking about the same night that I am?”

  The blank expression on Clayton’s face gave Bratt a sinking feeling of deja vu.

  They spent the next thirty minutes determining that Clayton knew nothing more than the most superficial details of his story and wasn’t even able to explain why he knew those. Finally, Bratt threw his hands up in disgust and asked him to wait outside.

  It was just possible that Clayton had been playing basketball with Small on that fateful night. It was also just possible that the Easter Bunny was Santa Claus’s bastard son. Now Bratt dreaded talking to Parker. Was it too much to hope that one out of the two alleged witnesses might not be a total, and totally obvious, liar?

  From where he sat Bratt could hear Clayton whispering angrily to Parker before the second witness entered his office.

  Parker came to the office door and hesitated, looking at Bratt with an expression that was a mix of defiance and trepidation. Funny, thought Bratt. They hardly had any expressions when they first showed up, but they didn’t take long to acquire a broad range of looks.

  Kouri came into the office and mentioned that Clayton had left, so Bratt motioned to him to sit down with them. He said nothing to Parker, however, waiting to see what the young man’s first move would be. Finally, Parker headed for the sofa, trying hard to look disinterested in the proceedings. Bratt began the questions without any preliminaries.

  “Ashley, what’s your relationship to Marlon Small?”

  Parker hesitated, obviously trying to think ahead to where the traps lay in this question.

  “My cousin,” he finally answered.

  “Do you think your cousin shot those guys in Burgundy?”

  “No way, man.”

  “Tell me why not?”

  Parker was obviously ready for this kind of tricky lawyer’s questions, because he answered right away.

  “’Cause he was with me an’ Shoot, at the park. No way he could have shot those guys.”

  “Good,” said Bratt. There was no point in wasting time with this witness. Either he knew more than Clayton or he didn’t. “Now tell me about the park. Tell me what time you got there, what time you left. Tell me who was there.”

  To Bratt’s total surprise, Parker told him. Detail by d
etail, all the relevant names and times were listed. He knew they had left the park just after midnight because a public security car had driven by and told them the park was off-limits at that hour. He knew it was the same night as the murders because he had heard about the shootings the next morning and called Marlon to ask him if he knew any of the guys. He knew who was there with them, what time they had arrived at the park and how everybody had spent their time. In short, and in comparison to Clayton, he was a revelation. Bratt listened and smiled to himself. One excellent alibi witness wasn’t so bad after all. It was certainly better than two below-average ones.

  When Parker finished recounting their comings and goings on the fateful night, Bratt looked back over his notes and read a logical, credible story. As much as possible at this early stage, Parker had been able to answer every question that Bratt foresaw might be asked of him on cross-examination. The difference between Clayton and Parker was staggering. There were only a few personal details left to cover with him.

  “Ashley, I want you to be straight with me, because the police are going to pull out your criminal record as soon as we give them your name this week. You’ve been in trouble with the law?”

  “Yes, I have. But nothing heavy like murder, or anything violent at all.”

  “Good, good. Tell me whatever you’ve been found guilty of. Adult or juvenile.”

  “Ok. Well, I passed a few bad checks a couple of years ago.”

  “What’s ‘a few’ mean?”

  “About forty, I guess. It went on over a year. They were checks from where I worked.”

  “Oh, I see. About how much were those checks for?”

  “About? Oh, about thirty thousand dollars.”

  Bratt felt his earlier feeling of elation start to die down just a bit.

  “So, you defrauded your employer for thirty grand. Was any of it recovered?”

  “Naw, man. I blew it all on coke.”

  Just like that, Bratt’s feeling of elation was a thing of the past. Queasiness had quickly taken its place in the pit of his stomach.

  “Coke? You got a coke problem?”